'Quite radical' The outspoken and affable leftwinger in line to be Ireland's president

The lights dimmed and the crowd packed into Vicar Street, a concert venue in inner-city Dublin, their eyes locked on the stage.

- Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent

The emcee made barbed jokes about Ireland’s government, but there was little need to warm up the youthful audience. The atmosphere was already electric. He launched a chant. “I say Catherine. You say?”

The roared response could have lifted the roof. “Connolly!”

Barring a last-minute political upset, Catherine Connolly, a name unfamiliar to most Irish people just a few months ago, is expected to become Ireland’s next head of state after a presidential election today.

Anger over a housing crisis and the cost of living, various campaign blunders by the ruling centre-right coalition of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, rare unity in the leftwing opposition and the deft use of social media have combined to make Connolly a symbol of change.

At Vicar Street, the independent leftwing candidate strode on to the stage: grey-haired, dressed in black, smiling. When the roars subsided she spoke in Irish, then English: “What we have achieved together, I cannot put a value on that.”

Her voice was soft, the accent pure Galway. “We want a republic that we can be proud of, a republic that will never stand over the normalisation of genocide, or the normalisation of homelessness, or obscene waiting lists. But enough of that. This is a night to celebrate.”

The crowd and the performers, including Christy Moore and the Mary Wallopers, obliged by turning the concert into a rollicking mix of folk music, punk ethos and political conviction that felt like a victory party. Opinion polls give Connolly, 68, a wide lead over her establishment rival, Heather Humphreys, in the election to choose Ireland’s 10th president and successor to Michael D Higgins.